Normalcy

I am attempting in these short little publications to show how human communication, thinking and swallowing should be your everyday concern - because you need them everyday. That means, eternal vigilance? Nothing that martial, white - hot or confrontational an approach is necessary. It's more an application of wide - angle mindfulness, allowing you a feel for getting up and doing what needs to be done (obscure public radio variety show reference).

Today, let's think about our swallowing, and how the outside world might impact your access to good nutrition. We should also think about the ease with which most of us can live placid everyday lives - because of what happens behind the scenes. I learned to appreciate this duality of existence while a hospital speech- language pathologist. Our new hospital featured a public corridor for patients and visitors, while an additional corridor was solely for staff. We were told at orientation, "It's like what they do at Disneyland".

Refer to my blog entry "Swallowing at the Crossroads", originally posted on the site "Pretty Wonderful, Communication", January 3, 2021: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/preview/326362698481900690/5502036516408368858 for more details on a wide - angle mindfulness for swallowing. On this day in 1997, Hong Kong chose to euthanize a large percentage of the poultry in its markets, after the microorganism found in an ill child's bloodstream had signs of bird flu. It was the initial sign that avian flu, termed H5N1 flu, has "jumped" from birds to humans without an intermediate use of a pig as a host. Destroying the potential hosts of the virus was the alternative to putting diseased fowl into the food system.

If you haven't any idea about what is needed to euthanize a large number of chickens, take a look inside a confinement building for chickens: feathers, feces, urine, ammonia, dust, rotting feed, and all the additional pathogens that might breed in this dirty environment, making your future chicken tenders not so appetizing. Having a wide-angle mindful attitude about such an operation, should bring to your lips the thought: I'm very glad I don't have to do that. And you don't. Farmers have access to support from their State Agriculture Departments, as well as Cooperative Extension offices, to control any outbreak of disease. Normalcy bias = our tendency to underestimate the impact of a powerful event....see the December 28, 2024 piece on the subject in Forbes (Bryce Hoffman). We just want our normal life! You've no doubt heard bird flu mentioned again and again over the past year. The state of California has even recently declared a state of emergency, to facilitate management of a potential H5N1 catastrophe. You have to do nothing. Thank you, state of California Ag workers, for keeping bird flu out of my gelato.

Through the work of these unseen people, laboring largely out of sight of your everyday best life, these ag and health workers make your mealtime experience safer and tastier. As government efficiency self-styled experts take aim at trimming institutional budgets, can we afford to make your protection against the next outbreak, invisible?